“The laboratory in Dublin, which has been enlarged so as to hold 550 people, will not hold half the persons who desire to attend my lectures. The 550 tickets issued for the course by the Dublin Society, at two guineas each, were all disposed of the first week; and I am told now that from ten to twenty guineas are offered for a ticket. “This is merely for your eye; it may please you to know that your son is not unpopular or useless. Every person here, from the highest to the lowest, shows me every attention and kindness. “I shall come to see you as soon as I can. I hear with infinite delight of your health, and I hope Heaven will continue to preserve and bless a mother who deserves so well of her children. “I am your very affectionate son “H. DAVY. “My kindest love to my sisters and aunts.” But Davy’s affections at the moment were not wholly spent upon his kindred, and another mistress than Science had become the object of his devotion. The “little madness” of which Maria Edgeworth wrote was always a vulnerable point with Davy, for he followed the calling of the Apostles with all the zeal and ardour he gave to philosophy, and to engage him upon the subject of angling was a more direct road to his sympathies than to talk to him of science. The wooing began in this wise: “Mr. Davy regrets that he cannot send Walton to Mrs. Apreece this morning. He did not recollect that he had lent the book to a friend who lives a little way out of town. He will send honest Isaac to Mrs. Apreece to-morrow or Thursday. “Mrs. Apreece is already of the true faith of the genuine angler, the object of whose art and contemplation is to exalt spirit above matter, to enable the mind to create its own enjoyments and to find society even in the bosom of Nature.” Matters went on apace. Shortly afterwards we read: “I return the ticket. I begin to like the opera from association. The same association would, I think, make me love a desert, and perhaps, in a long time, might make me an admirer of routs.” Again: “To avoid studiously what other people seek would have the semblance of affectation and though sincerely I have no ambition to shine in courts or to become a courtier; yet I have sympathy more than enough to wish to be where you like to go.” On another occasion he wrote: “I find an invitation from Mr. T---- on my return last night for Wednesday. Pray do you go to the Miss Ch----’s to-night or to Miss S----’s to-morrow night? I wish to know as you are my magnet (though you differ from a magnet in having no repulsive point) and direct my course. Your society always delightful to me is really at this moment balm to a wounded mind.” The following is a New Year’s Day letter written to arrive on January 1st, 1812:--